13 [ToW] What is Praise & Worship?

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the creative team talks podcast for Hillsong Creative. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Ray Badham and I serve on the eclectic guitar at the Hills campus. I am honoured today to be able to share, share on what is praise and worship? It's important that we understand what praise and worship is because we're leading people in praise and worship each week, aren't we? And so I'm going to talk about, first of all, what is worship? And number two, what is praise? And number three, how to praise and worship. Right? So I'm going to base this on John four. John four is the passage where Jesus stops by the well of Jacob and asks a samaritan woman for a drink. And the whole story starts around this theme of water and of thirst. It's because in this world, we are thirsty. We are hungry. We are thirsty for something. We have a thirst that goes deep into, into the core of our being. So what are we thirsty for in John four, really? The theme is worship. The word worship is used ten times. We are thirsty for worship. We are driven to long for, to adore, to strive after, to look for beauty, to look for power, to look for intimacy. And so what is worship? In the old English, we get the word worship from the word worth, worth ship. And so that tells us the word worship means to see the worth of. All right? So to see the worth of God, to see how much God is worth, how much is he worth? $100, $1,000? A million? A trillion, a gazillion? If we could gather all of the money in the whole world, if we could dig up all of the treasure, the jewels of the whole earth, and gather them all together, it would still pale in comparison to God because God has ultimate worth. Tim Keller says that worship is ascribing ultimate value to something in a way that engages my whole being, to ascribe ultimate value to something in a way that engages my whole being. That's what worship is. I realize that God is worth so much that it just captures me up right in this, you know, my physical being is caught up. I just want to dance and sing and praise God. That's what worship is. It captures my whole being. Number two, what is praise? Well, what happens to this woman after she encounters Jesus? Her life is so transformed that she leaves her water jar and she runs off to tell other people about Jesus. She just can't help it, right? She realizes who this is. And the word appraise, starting with a means that she appraises his value so much that she just wants to run, tell other people. I remember when I was about ten years of age, we went to Dreamworld. My whole family went to dream world. And I started playing this game where, you know, you got this gun and you could shoot these targets, and you put $0.20 in and it lasts for three minutes. I remember shooting this thing and just kept going. And it went over three minutes, and I'm like, wow, what's going on? And I kept going and I just kept going. I was caught up in it, and I looked around, my family was gone, and I just kept going. And I remember I got so excited that I just got up and I ran. I wanted to tell someone about this. I want to tell my family. And that's what praise is. You just can't help it. You're caught up in this thing and just want to run and tell people, right? That's what worship is. That's what praise is. So how do we praise and worship? Well, there's a big problem with worship is that the more I see God's value, you that he is so worth, you know, he is worth more than anything else, he is worthy. The more I see his value, the more I will see my value, which is much less right that I am unworthy. Right. I'm unworthy to come before him. That's why Jesus says in John four, he says, the hour is coming and has now come. That phrase, the hour is coming, turns up in the book of John multiple times. And toward the end of the story, Jesus says to the Father, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son. And what he's talking about is the hour of the cross. And so here when he's talking about worship, he says, the hour is coming and has come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. Thing is that Jesus fixes this problem of worship because, yes, God is of ultimate value. But Jesus made a way for us to come to the father, to come to have a relationship with God as a child to a father. And through Jesus, we can come boldly because we're accepted in Christ. We can have a relationship with God, and we can worship God freely and boldly. And so I encourage you this weekend, when you're leading people in praise and worship, lead them in that way, knowing that Christ is the mediator, and he brings us to that place where we can come boldly and worship God, realize his worth, be caught up in worshipping him, and be free in worshipping him, and so lead the people in that way. This weekend, be blessed. [00:07:13] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. For more of our theology of worship series, look for them in the title as you scroll through the episodes. There's also a link in the show notes for the whole series. We hope they encourage you and we'll see you next time. You.